Why Johnny's Doing Calculus: The Booming Education Industry

In late May four teachers and administrators, sitting solemnly behind a table at the office of a top Manhattan public school, delivered the bad news to Elizabeth and Antonio Trindade. Their son, Lorenzo, could not keep up. He needed to be placed in special education classes at a smaller school.

Ms. Trindade listened with disbelief. The future she had imagined for her child -- a competitive high school, maybe an Ivy League university -- was disintegrating.

In the not-too-distant past, this sort of conference might have occurred in Lorenzo's eighth year of school, or even as early as the fourth grade. But Lorenzo was 6 years old. He was failing kindergarten.

''They could kill my son,'' Ms. Trindade said of the school officials.

So she responded as if Lorenzo had been diagnosed with a fatal disease: she went looking for a second opinion. After that meeting, she arranged appointments with a child psychologist and a pediatrician. And then she took Lorenzo to a Huntington Learning Center, one of the for-profit tutorial and educational centers that are becoming increasingly common in cities and suburbs.

In doing this, Ms. Trindade joined thousands of other parents across the country who are plunging into the vast world of ''supplemental education,'' of which chains like Huntington, Sylvan and Score! make up only a part. In the past five years, an enormous educational industry has taken off to meet the needs and demands of parents who are either frustrated with schools, or fearful that their children will fall behind in an increasingly competitive world.

The amount of products and services -- how-to books, software titles, learning centers, private tutoring programs -- is stunning. Since 1991, Sylvan, one of the first chains of storefront learning centers, has grown from 466 to 700 outlets across the country, with more than 124,000 students registered last year. Huntington is also expanding, from 112 centers in 1995 to a planned 200 by the end of this year.

''The message we get from parents is not so much that they're frustrated with schools, but that they're frustrated with their child's performance,'' said Ray Huntington, who with his wife, Eileen, founded the first Huntington Learning Center in Oradell, N.J., in 1977. ''Originally, we were the last choice. Today, we are increasingly the first choice.''

There is so much educational software that stores cannot come close to stocking it all. About three new titles arrive on the market every day, all aspiring to become the next ''Rabbit Reader'' or ''Jumpstart.'' Last year, sales of educational software topped $511 million.

The hottest sellers are for children in preschool through third grade, and the target group seems to be getting only younger: the new ''Jumpstart Baby'' is for babies 9 to 18 months old.

''I say there will soon be electrodes they will hook up to a woman's stomach that will be educational,'' said Ann Stephens, president of PC Data, which tracks software sales. ''What's next? 'Jumpstart Fetus'?''

Probably not. But parental anxiety over education and future success certainly helps explain some books, like ''Career Coaching Your Kids, for Ages 6 to 26. The volume of materials hasn't necessarily made for more clarity: Different books and tutoring programs often espouse contradictory advice, like using the phonics or whole-language approaches -- or neither -- to help children learn to read. Some child development experts note, meanwhile, that many ''new approaches'' on the market are merely repackaged old maxims like drills and memorization.

What also concerns many development experts is the notion that young children can be cleanly assessed and categorized. However good their intentions, they say, parents and schools must be careful not to place unrealistic expectations on young children, and they caution that learning is not a one-size-fits-all commodity.

''There's a magic bullet for everything now,'' said Gail Furman, a Manhattan child psychologist who works with several private schools. ''If you're depressed, you take Prozac. If you're impotent, you take Viagra. If you have a learning problem, you get tutored, get tested and you think it will all get better. But that's not always true.''

Young children, Dr. Furman noted, develop differently. Some may excel in early grades; others may take longer to bloom. One child with early reading or handwriting problems may be incredibly creative; another who achieves early may simply be more mature and better organized. The second child may be identified early as a high achiever -- and then end up struggling later as school subjects become more complex.

''You then make these kids 'labeled' and 'identified,' and what happens is they become more and more defensive and self-conscious about learning,'' Dr. Furman said.

In Manhattan, though, the intense competition for admittance into top elementary schools, public and private, often hinges on early assessments. Private tutors charge up to $150 an hour on the Upper East Side to help students meet, or get ahead of, their workloads.

In her own practice, Dr. Furman says she sees many examples of children who she believes are inappropriately labeled as slow learners by schools. She is now counseling a 6-year-old girl in kindergarten whose parents want her to attend an elite elementary school. In one sample of her work, the child has written, ''Ples Do Not Tush, Thik you.'' She scored well on I.Q. tests, but has not yet grasped spelling and reading. ''This child has been identified as a youngster with severe learning problems,'' Dr. Furman said. ''Her parents have been advised to get outside tutoring and counseling, and that she may not be a candidate for the school.''

Parents wait up to a year to take their children to Dr. Mel Levine, director of the Center for Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. The author of several highly regarded books on child development, Dr. Levine agrees with Dr. Furman that early assessments can lead to premature conclusions, except where a child has severe problems.

But, he said, parents are right to be concerned if a fourth grader is still struggling to read, or if a sixth grader resists writing or doing homework. Such a child could have subtle motor problems, memory problems or difficulty in organizing ideas, he said.

Because he considers learning disorders to be an ''epidemic,'' Dr. Levine credited private learning centers with providing strong remedial tutoring in basic skill subjects like reading and math. But he said parents should not believe these programs are reinventing the educational wheel.

''A lot of these programs portray themselves as being on the cutting edge, but they're doing things that are very traditional,'' he said, adding that much of what is offered is old-fashioned repetitive drilling.

A conflict of interest can exist, Dr. Levine said, when centers that offer tutoring also sell child-assessment services. ''You come in, and you get assessed, and they say, 'Well, we just happen to have exactly what you need,' '' he said. ''It would be better to separate assessment and treatment.''

Vickie Glazar, a Sylvan spokeswoman, noted that Sylvan uses the respected California Achievement Test to make its assessments; Huntington uses a combination of tests, including parts of the California test.

But another potential area for conflicts of interest can come from ''co-branding.'' In one example, Sylvan and the software company Virtual Knowledge have a relationship in which children who take Virtual Knowledge's ''Children's Skills Test'' assessment software are nudged toward Sylvan for help.

Though Dr. Levine has not seen that test, he cautioned parents about placing too much weight on findings from any generalized, at-home computer assessments. In many ways, this assessment is a descendant of the old at-home I.Q. tests. Designed to be ''fun'' and not intimidating to children, the at-home assessment software is based on the Iowa Skills Test and the California Achievement Test, according to company officials.

Paradoxically, many assessment specialists -- like child psychologists, developmental pediatricians and educational diagnosticians -- are struggling to stay in business, because relatively few parents can afford the hundreds of dollars needed to pay for a comprehensive evaluation, and insurance usually does not cover it.

Such specialized assessment can include a battery of medical and diagnostic tests. Lawrence Green, a retired educational therapist and diagnostician who lives near San Jose, Calif., said only specialists can properly assess complicated, underlying learning weaknesses that often go undetected in quick diagnostic assessments.

''The parent is faced with all these options and they have limited resources,'' said Mr. Green, whose book, ''Finding Help When Your Child Is Struggling in School,'' will be published later this summer by Golden Books. ''What they know is: 'I have a child who is bright and capable, but he is not working at a level commensurate with his ability. So what can I do?' ''

Experts worry that lower-income children, many of whom would greatly benefit from extra help, are far less likely to get it, pushing them even further behind academically. Educational software begins at around $30. And most poor families don't have home computers in any case. One session at a learning center, meanwhile, can cost $55 to $75 an hour, depending on the child's age and skill level, and the centers suggest three hours a week -- putting the price beyond the reach of many middle-class families as well.

''The learning centers work, obviously, with kids who have money,'' said Deborah Briggs, who owns two Huntington franchises in Manhattan.

In response, a small number of public school systems, using Federal grants, have contracted with Sylvan to operate tutoring centers in disadvantaged schools. And there are nonprofit programs sprinkled across the country. The Readnet Foundation operates programs in five upper Manhattan schools, using computers and specially designed software to provide intensive reading support and tutoring for underprivileged children. But these programs are the exceptions.

''If I get 100 calls a month, 60 percent of them are from parents who are really poor,'' Ms. Briggs said. ''The first thing they ask is do we have financial aid. It's unbelievably heartbreaking.'' She said currently she has five lower-income students being tutored for free.

Ms. Briggs emphasized that learning centers are not designed for students with problems like dyslexia or other learning disabilities. Instead, they best serve students who, for one reason or another, are not reaching their potential.

At Huntington, incoming students undergo two to three hours of diagnostic and achievement testing to determine reading level, to measure phonetic ability, to assess ability to recall information and to pinpoint learning strengths and weaknesses. In one test, the Slosson Visual-Motor Performance Test, a child is shown 14 different shapes and asked to perform tasks; for example, to ''draw a straight line inside the rectangle.'' Ms. Briggs said this test helps establish whether a child can process visual information properly.

She said her tutors -- all of them certified teachers -- do not adhere to any particular educational philosophy. If they think phonics will work, fine. If it is whole-word reading, fine. The educational director, Robert Golden, says four of five students show improvement after several months.

''It's about going to a child's weaknesses and helping them survive with that weakness,'' Ms. Briggs said.

Just the promise of individualized attention is why so many parents turn to help outside their children's schools.

''It doesn't matter how good or bad the school system is,'' said Gary Natriello, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College, who took his own son to Sylvan. ''They're organized to produce bunches of kids. They're just not organized to really address the needs of particular kids. They're not organized to help a kid catch up.''

On the surface, chains like Sylvan and Huntington may seem as similar as McDonald's is to Burger King. Both use a ratio of one tutor per three pupils and both have similar hourly rates. But Sylvan offers an incentive plan in which students can earn points toward winning a prize, such as a skateboard; Huntington considers rewards to be the wrong message. Sylvan guarantees that a student's reading skills will jump at least one reading level after 36 hours of tutelage; Huntington doesn't make guarantees.

Some independent learning centers or private tutorial services offer even more individual attention. K.C. Genzamer, a Manhattan tutor who charges $90 an hour and works with children ages 3 to 14, offers a weekend study hall at her apartment so students can drop by to work on homework.

Linda Nelson, a retired teacher who opened Learning Power, a tutoring center in Hartford, offers one tutor for every student. Ms. Nelson said she decided against buying a Sylvan or Huntington franchise because of what she described as their ''cookie-cutter'' methods.

''We spend a lot of time looking over report cards, calling teachers,'' Ms. Nelson said. Ms. Glazar, the Sylvan spokeswoman, responded that the centers offer the assurance of ''consistent programs around the country.''

If learning centers represent a 90's variation on old-style tutoring, then software -- the other fast-growing component of the supplemental education industry -- may be the educational brave new world. Titles like ''Math Blaster,'' ''Reader Rabbit'' and ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?'' already constitute something of a canon. There seems little doubt that using educational software only enhances children's computer literacy, and many parents regard it as essential to preparing for the future.

''Parents are very worried in general that the world is going to turn into a computer-generated place, and that their kids have got to get started prenatally,'' said Mary Sue Lindley, an elementary school computer teacher at Public School 321 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Diane Shohet, an executive producer with Hasbro Interactive, which makes computer games with an educational bent, said that ''edutainment'' is the most recent trend for children. In edutainment, the emphasis is on visual graphics and ''fun'' animated characters. ''People are doing more entertainment-form titles that happen to have some education in them,'' Ms. Shohet said. ''Fun,'' of course, is part of the attraction of software; unlike rote school exercises, children embrace software learning games.

''There's nothing to say that just because something is fun, it isn't educational,'' Ms. Shohet said.

But even educators involved with software worry that some products labeled as educational are merely thinly veiled video games. Robin Hubbard, executive director of the Readnet Foundation, which has developed a reading software program in conjunction with Teachers College, said most titles ''for younger children are really just pleasant looking, not based on academic theory, generally.''

''The software the little kids are using really has to be a close relative to the television they have been watching,'' she said. ''Otherwise it won't hold their interest.''

What is lacking is an easy way to make sense of it all. In this, the Government offers little help. Charles Blaschke, head of Education Turnkey System, a market research group that monitors Federal and state initiatives for software, said that the last major study of computer-based education in schools was done in 1975. For simply weeding through the options, the Web sites of Family PC, Children's Software Revue, Home PC and Technology & Learning offer reviews of new software.

Some educators say the evolution of software is already transforming the learning process for the better. Voice-sensitive computer software can interact with students doing exercises. The not-too-distant future of virtual reality -- when a student can put on a headset and find himself in first-century Asia Minor -- tantalizes many educators.

''It's only the beginning,'' said Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. ''It's going to inevitably revolutionize a lot of learning.

Kids and families are having direct access to learning and education, he added. They don't have to go through an intermediary like a school.

Elizabeth Trindade is spending much of the summer looking for ways to help her son. Huntington determined that Lorenzo was, in fact, in need of tutoring and recommended three hours a week at $225. Ms. Trindade could not afford it. She is a personal trainer who runs her own business; her husband is a personal trainer for a health club.

After Huntington, Ms. Trindade took Lorenzo to a child psychologist, who raised the possibility of attention deficit disorder. She also bought a copy of ''The World Almanac for Children,'' and she kept meeting with officials at Manhattan's District 2.

Finally, she said, she reached a compromise with them: Lorenzo will repeat kindergarten this fall rather than transfer into special education. In her research, she discovered that Lorenzo was one of only a few children in his class who hadn't attended preschool. Perhaps, Ms. Trindade said, Lorenzo wasn't slow, but simply behind before he had started.

To help him catch up, she has restructured her home life. She now spends time every day tutoring Lorenzo; when he makes up his bed, he has to also spell b-e-d. She has devised counting games and learning games, partly from consulting books. He also works with different educational software titles.

It's all geared toward one goal: success, from first grade on. ''I didn't realize that after kindergarten,'' she said, ''you've got to be ready.''

Correction: August 8, 1998, Saturday An article in Education Life last Sunday about the supplemental education industry misspelled the surname of a private tutor in Manhattan. She is K. C. Genzmer, not Genzamer.